Like Breathing, Only Worse
by Aisha Kaltinera
Summary: Prussia, like all Nations, knows how he's going to die. It's still a long ways in coming. TW: character death, WWII, war.


Disclaimer: Yeah, not mine. Hetalia belongs to Himaruya.

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Prussia, like most Nations could sense his own death. It wasn't always easy to tell, and sometimes it was only a vague inkling in the back of a Nation's mind. Some Nations, like the micros and the younger smaller Nations, knew they were destined to die a quick death, to grow and fade in a breath of human desire. Some of the more of the other nations knew the manner of their deaths. England, no matter how hard he tried, could not hide his fear when he stood by open water. For all his navy and all his years as a privateer, the sea called for his bones.

Norway kept away from open flame, from campfires and wildfires. Prussia thought it was weird, but, well, burning alive wasn't exactly an easy death. Then he noticed the way the Nordic Nation's eyes grew round and he stilled whenever volcanos or ash or lava was mentioned.

Sometimes, Prussia glanced at Iceland, thinking about still surfaces and pressure cookers.

Prussia's death hits him like a bullet, like a train, like the small body of his older brother hitting the battlefield.

France's eyes are wide, like he's not quite sure why it was so easy to defeat a sickly child-empire. Holy Rome lies among the dead and dying like a discarded toy, almost as surprised as France.

Prussia kills the soldier he had been toying with, throwing himself with a scream atop the vanishing body of his brother. There is nothing he can do, and as he looks at those blue eyes, he knows they will be the death of him.

But he does not die. Not then, not when he finds the German Confederation. But as West grows, he declines, and Prussia resents this slow, slow death. France's Revolution, and that fucking rat Napoleon. Then, the Great War, the war to end all wars. Prussia spits on the ground, because he knows war, and knows another one is coming, just by seeing the banked fire in his little brother's eyes.

This war is the only one Prussia has so ever begged for death.

Then, as the economy crumbles in his baby brother's wake to pay France off as soon as possible and Prussia himself is reduced to a 'free state' and a boiling point.

Surprisingly, it takes less than thirty years for it to come to a head. But Germany's boss scares him in a way nothing has ever before. His rhetoric is strong and he's compelling, Prussia will give him that, but still, he's unsettling.

But surely as the tide, everything starts going to shit as Hitler begins targeting his own citizens. Sometimes, Prussia stares at Germany, wondering at the stranger wearing his brother's skin.

And the war rages on, and Germany gets crazier and Prussia gets weaker. Finally, Hitler resorts to drugging his own country, ordering him to take the pills that will quiet the screaming nightmares and keep him working at peak efficiency.

Despite the fact that Hitler greatly admires his tactics, Prussia the man irritates him. An albino, left-handed at that, who was rebellious against his rule? Could not be allowed to stay.

Just as Prussia starts getting through to his brother, he is sent to a camp for 'rehabilitation'. They both know what that means. Still, the guards have to drag him off snarling and fighting the entire way, flinching whenever his bright red eyes catch their own.

("Mama, what's wrong with him?"

"That's ru- by the Lord, his eyes are made of hellfire, get away from him, child!"

"How do you know, have you ever been there?"

Being beaten to death hurts.)

He is circulated from camp to camp, caught between being a prisoner and a king. Generally, he gets left alone. He cherishes it. Because, because, he must. Finally, he ends up on the Eastern front, fighting a war no one can win.

By the time the war is done, Prussia feels like nothing can surprise him. Yet the news of his imminent dissolution sends him to his knees, furious and broken all at once. His rebellion, his pain, all for nothing.

Prussia rages, against the Allies, against the government, against his _fucking_ brother and his fucking life choices. In some ways, he confirms their fears. He was the root of everything, of all of their woes and murder. With Prussia gone, peace will prevail.

The Allies turn a blind eye to the way Canada fights like berserker, or the way Spain still quakes with blood-fever, or the way England is still well-practiced at the art of torture.

Dissolving feels

like

blue…

… eyes…

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Prussia wakes to Russia leaning over him with a cruel smile.

"Ah, you've woken up, very good. Come, I have work for you, Kaliningrad."

Prussia follows, unsure if his death is still his brother or something new entirely.

He'll find out soon enough, he supposes.

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Yeah, I have a lot of Prussia/WWII Hetalia feelings. If there was anything in this that triggered you that I didn't warn for, please feel free to PM and I'll make sure to include that.


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